Page 13 of Twisted Ties

“But I don’t want you to go.”

She smiles at me empathetically and bends down to kiss my wet cheek. “I’ll be quick, I promise. I’ll be back before you know it. And anyway, I think he wants you to himself.” She points to Pip who is licking my fingertips.

I’m still waitingfor Winnie to return an hour later, when a nurse knocks on the door. It’s not the usual nurse, someone different this time. Azlan eyes him with suspicion.

“I’ve come to check your vital signs,” he says, squirming under Azlan’s gaze. “Would you mind leaving the room, Sir?”

“I don’t need to leave the room,” he says.

“Azlan,” I say, “the man’s only trying to do his job. Go wait outside the door.”

Azlan glares some more at the poor nurse who seems to shrink before his eyes, then strides out.

The nurse sighs with relief. “He is pretty intimidating,” he mumbles, reaching across to wind the blood pressure monitor around my arm.

“You’re telling me!” I mumble back, watching the needle skid across the dial as the nurse pumps air.

“All good,” he says, taking my wrist in his hand next and pressing down on my pulse point as his lips move. Finally, he sticks a thermometer in my ear and then adds all the readings to the notes clipped at the end of my bed.

“You’re all done.”

“Thank you,” I say.

He collects up the equipment but hovers by my bed. He opens his mouth and closes it.

“Do you need to check anything else?” I ask.

“No.” He maneuvers the equipment into his left hand and digs his right into his pocket. “There was a man outside. He wanted me to give you this.” He holds out his hand, a silver ring with a skull head carved into the metal work balances in his palm.

I stare down at the ring. “What man?” I whisper.

“To be honest, he looked like trouble but I thought maybe he was your boyfriend or something. I guess notthough considering …” He motions with his head towards the door where the figure of the man in black hovers behind the frosted pane.

The ring is familiar. I shiver. The hand from my dream. The hand that tried to strangle me. Renzo Barone’s hand I now realize. I shiver again, remembering both the creepy aura of the man and the strangely alluring magnetism.

“He is trouble,” I say. “Big trouble.”

The nurse glances at the ring in his hand as if he expects it to burn his skin.

“You want me to dispose of it?”

“Yes, please,” I say. “It’s most likely cursed.”

The man’s eyes widen in horror and he looks like he wants to throw the thing out the window. Instead, he returns it carefully to his pocket. “I’m sorry. It seemed harmless to me. Just … if he ever asks, I delivered it to you, okay?”

I go to ask him what exactly Barone said to him, but then the door swings open and Winnie comes charging through.

This time no one has attempted to bar her entrance which I think is down to the man in black. However, she returns empty-handed, slumping into the chair by my bed with a defeated sigh as the nurse takes his opportunity to hurry away.

“Where are all the books?” I ask, confused.

“Gone,” she says. “Not one book on the subject of fated mates in the entire goddamn library. Can you believe that? Someone checked them all out!”

“I guess it’s a popular subject.”

“But every book?”

“Maybe someone else is in a similar position to me.”